THE BILLIONAIRE EX-WIFE COLD REVENGE

Reyna. The smoke alarm in my head should have gone off the moment I walked into that hotel room. I'm a chef. I read people the same way I read food — by smell, texture, instinct. You learn fast in a professional kitchen that things burning don't always look like they're burning. Sometimes they look perfectly fine, golden and beautiful, right up until they don't. That's how I should have known. Instead, I stood in the doorway of Suite 1408 at the Harrington Hotel in Austin, Texas, holding a covered cart with a private room service order; Wagyu ribeye, truffle butter, two glasses, one bottle of Opus One, and watched my husband of four years buried between the legs of a woman I recognized immediately. Giselle. His junior associate. The one I signed holiday cards for. For a second, I just stood there. The cart handle was cold under my fingers. I had been dropping off this order as a favor to a colleague who'd twisted his ankle. Wrong place, wrong time, right revelation. Dave didn't hear me come in. The music was too loud — jazz, which is ironic because jazz was playing the night he proposed to me. I watched for exactly eleven seconds. I know because I counted. Old kitchen habit. Timing is everything. Then I pulled out my phone and took three photos. "Oh God, don't stop—" Giselle's voice cut off when she opened her eyes and saw me. "Reyna." Dave scrambled back, and the look on his face wasn't guilt, not first, anyway. First, it was annoyance. Like I was a line cook who'd interrupted a tasting. "What are you… How are you here?" "Covering a shift." I kept my voice flat. "Room service." He grabbed the sheet. "This isn't what—" "Don't." I put my phone in my apron pocket. "I have what I need." Giselle had the sense to stay quiet. I'll give her that. "Baby." Dave stood, and I noticed he moved to block Giselle like I was the threat. "Let me explain. You haven't been present. You're always at the restaurant, always working, always—" "Always what?" I asked. "Paying our mortgage? Paying your car note? Covering your mother's medical bills last spring?" His jaw tightened. "That has nothing to do with this." "No, it doesn't." I looked at him for the first time in months. Dave Reyes, thirty-six, beautiful face, easy smile, the kind of man who walked into rooms and made women forget their own names. I used to love that about him. Right now, looking at him standing in front of another woman in a bed I paid for because he'd suggested this hotel getaway "to reconnect," all I felt was tired. "Who paid for this room?" I asked quietly. He blinked. "I—" "Our joint account," I answered for him. "I checked the notification twenty minutes ago when the charge came through." I looked at Giselle. "That's why you're staying quiet. Because you know." Giselle looked away. Yeah. She knew. "Reyna, wait—" Dave moved toward me. "Don't." I stepped back into the hallway, keeping the door open between us. "My lawyer's name is Simone Vega. You'll hear from her Monday." "You're serious." He looked genuinely shocked, and that, more than anything, told me everything I needed to know about how little he thought of me. "Over one mistake?" "Is it one?" Silence. Right. "The restaurant is mine," I said. "Sole proprietorship, registered under Reyna Castillo. Not Reyna Reyes. I made sure of that before we got married." A pause. "My father's lawyers made sure of that." Something crossed his face then. Confusion, then slow realization. "What do you mean, your father's lawyers?" I smiled, and I could feel it didn't reach my eyes. "Have a good night, Dave." I walked back to the service elevator. My hands weren't shaking. I thought they would be. Instead, I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time, like the pressure valve on a commercial pressure cooker finally releasing. Clean. I felt clean. ~~ By midnight, I was back in my kitchen. Not the restaurant kitchen, my personal one. The one in the back of the house that Dave always called "too professional for a home." Twelve-burner range, double convection ovens, a marble island cold enough to work pastry on. I had it built when we bought the house. He hadn't understood it then. He didn't understand most things about me. I made pasta from scratch because that's what I do when the world falls apart. My hands know the motion — flour, eggs, salt, olive oil, press and fold and push until something fresh becomes something worth eating. My grandmother taught me that. She used to say that grief and dough respond to the same thing: patience and pressure. My phone lit up on the counter. Dave, calling for the fourth time. I turned it face down. The fifth call was from a number I didn't know. I almost didn't answer. But it was nearly midnight, and something made me pick up. "Reyna Castillo." The voice was male. Not Dave's easy Texas drawl — this was clipped, with a faint accent I couldn't immediately place. "Who is this?" "My name is Luca Harrington." A pause. "My father owns the hotel you were at tonight." I set down the dough scraper. "Okay." "I know what happened tonight. I need to speak with you." "How do you know what happened tonight?" "Because I was there. Not in the room," he added quickly. "I was in the suite across the hall. The door was open when you left. I saw you." "And you felt the need to call me at midnight why?" "Because your husband is in business with my father. A partnership we've been trying to exit for eight months." Another pause. "And because you're not who he thinks you are." I went very still. "What does that mean?" "It means," Luca Harrington said carefully, "your father, Edmund Castillo is not a restaurant owner from San Antonio." The pasta dough blurred slightly in front of me. "I don't know what you're talking about." "Reyna." His voice was quiet but certain. "I know who you are. I've known for six months. I need you to understand that what happened tonight may not be a coincidence." "Are you saying my husband—" "I'm saying we should talk. In person. Tomorrow." A pause. "Bring your lawyer." He hung up before I could respond. I stood in my kitchen for a long time after that, the pasta cooling on the counter, the city quiet outside the windows. Edmund Castillo. I hadn't heard that name spoken out loud to me in four years. Not since I walked away from a life I didn't choose, changed my last name to my mother's maiden name, enrolled in culinary school under the radar, and built something that was entirely mine: a restaurant, a reputation, a small and private world where I could breathe. My father didn't know where I was. That was the agreement. Or I thought it was. My phone lit up again. This time it was a text from Simone, my lawyer, whom I had messaged from the hotel hallway. “Papers are ready. I've been ready for six months, honestly. Also — call me when you can. I got a call earlier tonight from a name you'll recognize. Harrington.” My chest tightened. Simone had gotten a call too. I looked at the pasta on my counter. At the flour still dusted across my knuckles. At the kitchen my ex-husband always thought it was too much. He had no idea. None of them did. I pulled my hair back, rinsed my hands, and picked up the phone to call Simone. Outside, a black car sat at the end of my street — engine off, lights off. I noticed it when I moved to close the kitchen blinds. It had been there when I got home. I stood at the window for a moment, heart beating steadily, and watched it. Then I closed the blinds and dialed Simone. Some fires you don't run from. You season them.